Institutional discourses and gender identity construction: Negotiation of body image norms by adolescent girls in a Delhi school

This article deals with how the institutional discourse affects the construction and negotiation of gendered identities with reference to the discourse of body image and appearances endorsed by the institutional agents. It particularly explores the socially sanctioned ways of being and appearing 'womanly' at school. The paper explores the struggle between the institutional structure to reinforce and maintain bodies that adhere to the dominant gender order and the resistance put forward by students (girls) as a challenge to the mechanisms of social control and subordination. The adolescent body then becomes the site for the contestation and construction of normative gender identities.